_ CHAPTER VIII. THEY COME AND GO
"Daddy, do you mind if we have dinner a little early this evening?" Janice asked.
"I have my appetite with me, if that is what you want to know," said Broxton Day, smiling down upon her.
"Well, Delia has it all ready, I think. Too early, of course."
"Bring it on!" cried her father jovially. "I can do it justice."
Janice wondered if he could. Already the food, she knew, was drying up in the warming oven. She hurried out into the kitchen. Delia had not come in from the backyard. Janice shrank from interfering with that back-fence conference; but she could not see daddy's dinner spoiled.
"Come, Delia!" she called, opening the door. "My father has come home."
"Oh, my! Is your paw arrived?" asked the giantess; coming lingeringly away from the fence.
Janice saw Miss Peckham's snappy little eyes viewing her at the kitchen door with no pleasant expression. She felt that something was brewing--something that would not be pleasant. But the spinster retired without speaking to her.
"You have dinner ready very early, Delia," Janice said, as the big woman lumbered into the kitchen.
"Didn't you just say your paw had come?" demanded Delia in her squeaky voice.
"Yes. But you have everything ready at five o'clock instead of at six."
"Oh, yes. I don't never believe in keepin' folks waitin' for their victuals," said Delia, tossing her head. "You ain't got any call to be critical--no you ain't."
It was of no use! Janice saw that as plainly as she saw anything. This giantess has a dwarf's brain. As daddy said, when he became particularly "Yankeefied," "she didn't know beans!" It would be quite useless to talk to her, or to expect her to remember what she was told to do.
"I will do all I can to hide the rough corners from Daddy," Janice thought. "I'll watch Delia before I go to school, and come home from school to straighten her out just as quickly as I can. I just won't run to him with every little household trouble."
But it was a wretched dinner. It was so badly cooked that daddy shook his head over it mournfully.
"It is a mystery to me how they manage to boil one potato to mush while another is so hard you can't stick your fork into it," he said. "And no seasoning! This steak now--or is it steak?"
"Now, Daddy!" said Janice, half laughing, yet feeling a good deal like crying.
"Well, I wasn't quite sure," said her father. "I wonder if these cooks think that meat grows, all seasoned, on 'the critter'? They must believe that. However, does she do the other work well?"
"I--I don't know yet," murmured Janice. "I'll help her all I can, Daddy, and tell her how, if she'll let me."
"Well, maybe we can make something of her," said Broxton Day, with his hearty and cheerful laugh. "Remember, Olga wanted to boil fresh pork chops for our breakfast when she first came."
"I do wish we knew where Olga had gone to," said Janice. "It doesn't seem as though that girl would deliberately steal. I can't believe it. And if we don't get back that treasure-box and what it contains, Daddy, my heart will--just--be--broken."
"There, there! Don't give way about it. There is a chance yet of finding Olga--and the box, too," said her father, trying to comfort his little daughter. "I will not give up the search. Willie Sangreen will of course come back to his job, and he must know what has become of Olga. Those Swedes are very clannish indeed, over there at Pickletown; but some of them bank with us, and I am sure they will be on the lookout for the
girl. Only, of course, I have not told them why I am so anxious to find her."
They finished dinner, and Delia came in to clear away, with her plump lips pouting and a general air about her of having been much injured. But Mr. Day, now so used to the vagaries of hired help, made no comment.
He and Janice went into the living-room. This, at least, was homelike and clean. He settled into his chair and picked up the paper. Just then there was a ring at the front doorbell.
Janice would have jumped up to answer it; but she heard the giantess going through the hall. There was a voice. Janice recognized it with a start. Then the giantess approached the living-room door, heavy footed, with a clatter of smaller bootheels behind her.
Delia threw open the door as Mr. Day dropped his paper to look up. Her fat face was wreathed in a triumphant smile, and she said:
"It's the nice lady from nex' door. I guess she come to see your paw about them cats."
Mr. Day looked puzzled.
Janice could have screamed as Miss Peckham marched in. Delia apparently intended to stand in the doorway and enjoy whatever there was to enjoy; but as Mr. Day rose from his seat to welcome the neighbor, he said firmly:
"Thank you, Delia. We shall not need you in here at present. You may go."
The giantess tossed her head and lumbered out of the room, slamming the door behind her with unnecessary violence.
"Good-evening, Miss Peckham," said the man, offering the spinster a chair. "I don't know just what Delia meant about cats; but I presume you will explain."
"Huh!" snapped Miss Peckham, "I guess that girl of yours hasn't told you about what she done to my Sam. No, indeed! I guess not!"
She was evidently working herself up into a violent state of mind, and Mr. Day, who knew his next door
neighbor very well, hastened to smooth the troubled waters.
"I had not heard anything about cats, Miss Peckham, save the misfortune of a cat convention in our back kitchen yesterday morning. Janice told me about that, of course; but she could scarcely be blamed for it."
"I don't know why she shouldn't be blamed!" ejaculated the angry woman. "And my Sam's got a broken leg."
"I am sorry if any of the cats were injured. It was a thoughtless joke of--" he caught Janice's eye and understood her meaning, "of one of the neighbor's boys He meant no particular harm, I fancy."
"You needn't try an' lay it on no boy!" exclaimed Miss Peckham. '"Twas a girl done it. My Sam--"
"You mean that a girl broke the cat's leg?" queried Mr. Day, quietly.
"I mean just that. 'Twas a girl. And that is the girl!" and she pointed an accusing finger at the flushed Janice.
"Oh, I never!" exclaimed the latter under her breath, and shaking her head vigorously.
Mr. Day gave her a smiling look of encouragement.
"I feel sure," he said, to Miss Peckham, "that if Janice had by chance injured an animal--a cat, or any other--she would have told me. But although it may have been a girl who broke your cat's leg, it was not Janice."
"You don't know anything about it!" cried Miss Peckham angrily. "You don't know what goes on here all day long while you are gone. I pity you, Mr. Day--I pity you from the bottom of my heart. You ought to have a woman here to manage this girl of yours. That's what you need!"
"Oh!" gasped Janice, her color receding now. She was very angry.
"Ah! don't you flout me, Janice Day!" exclaimed the spinster, eyeing Janice malevolently. "I know how bad you act. I don't live right next door for nothin'. An' 'tisn't only at home you act badly, but on the street. Fighting with boys like a hoodlum. Oh, I heard about it!"
"Wait! Wait!" exclaimed Mr. Day, with sternness. "I think you are out of bounds, Miss Peckham. I do not ask you to tell me how to take care of my little daughter. And I am sure I do not believe that you are rightly informed about her actions, even if you do live next door."
Miss Peckham sniffed harder and tossed her head. "Let us get back to the cats," he went on quietly. "Have you found that one of your cats has been hurt?"
"His leg's broke. The doctor said it was a most vicious blow. He's put it in a cast, and poor Sam is quite wild."
"But why do you blame Janice?"
"She done it!" exclaimed the spinster nodding her shawled head vigorously. "She ought to be looked after."
"No, Janice did not hurt the cat," said Mr. Day with assurance, "unfortunately the cat was hurt on our premises. But it was the girl working for us, not my little girl, who injured your cat."
"What do you mean?" demanded Miss Peckham sharply. "Not this big thing you've got here--the one that let me in?"
"The Swedish girl," explained Mr. Day. "The cats were shut into our back kitchen, and before Janice could open the door to let them out, Olga, I believe, pelted them with coal."
"But what did she shut 'em up in the kitchen for?' demanded Miss Peckham, still pointing and glaring at Janice.
"Oh, I didn't!" exclaimed the latter, shaking her head vigorously.
"That was not my daughter's doings," Mr. Day repeated. "As I tell you, your cat was undoubtedly hurt on our premises. If I can do anything to satisfy you--pay the doctor's bill, or the like--"
"I don't want money from you, Broxton Day," exclaimed
the woman rising. "I didn't come here for that purpose. I came here to tell you that your house is goin' to rack and ruin and that your girl needs a strong hand to manage her. That's what she needs. You ain't had no proper home here since your wife died."
"I fear that is only too true, Miss Peckham," replied Mr. Day.
"If Mrs. Day knew how things was goin' she'd turn in her grave, I do believe," went on the neighbor, perhaps not wholly in bitterness.
The man's face paled. Miss Peckham did not know how much she was adding to the burden of sorrow in the hearts of Broxton Day and his little daughter. Janice was sobbing now, with her face hidden.
"What you need is an intelligent woman to take hold," went on the neighbor, warming to her subject. "Take this creature you got now. Ugh! Big elephant, and don't scarcely know enough to come in when it rains, I do believe."
"The class of people one finds at the agencies is admittedly not of a high order of intelligence," said Mr. Day softly.
"I should say they weren't--if them you've had is samples," sniffed Miss Peckham. "Why don't you get somebody decent?"
"I wish you would tell me how to go about getting a better houseworker," sighed Mr. Day.
"Get a working housekeeper--one that's trained and is respectable. Somebody to overlook--"
"But I cannot afford two servants," the man hastened to submit.
"I ain't suggesting another servant. Somebody that respects herself too much to be called a servant. Of course it's hard to find the right party.
"However, some women can do it. And that is the kind you need, Broxton Day. Somebody who will be firm with your girl, here, too."
"I am afraid," said Janice's father quietly, "that the sort of person you speak of is beyond my means; perhaps such a marvel is not in the market at all," and he
smiled again. "Thank you for your interest, Miss Peckham."
He rose again to see her to the door. The spinster might have considered remaining longer and offering further advice; but daddy knew how to get rid of people quickly and cheerfully when their business was over.
"Oh, Daddy! what a dreadful woman she is," sobbed Janice, when he came back into the living-room.
"Not so bad as that," he said, chuckling, and patting her shoulder comfortingly. "It is her way to make much of a little. You see, she did not want anything for her injured cat, she merely wanted to come in and talk about it."
"But--but, Daddy," confessed Janice, blushing deeply, "I really did fight Arlo Junior on the street. I boxed his ears."
Mr. Day had great difficulty to keep from laughing, but Janice was too absorbed in her troubles to notice it.
"Well, well! Taking the law into your own hands, were you?"
"Yes, Daddy. I guess it wasn't very ladylike. But I'm not a hoodlum!"
"Why was it that you did not want me to mention Arlo Junior?" asked Mr. Day curiously.
"Well, you see, I sort of promised him I wouldn't tell about what he did to the cats, if he came in here Saturday and helped me clean that back kitchen."
"Ho, ho! I see. Well, perhaps you are quite right to shield the young scamp under those circumstances," said her father, with twinkling eyes.
Mr. Day talked to his daughter for a while longer. He asked her about her school work and her school pleasures, about what the girls and boys in her circle of friends were doing. He tried to keep in close touch with the motherless girl's interests, and especially did he not want her to go to bed with sad and troublous thoughts in her mind.
After a cheerful and happy half hour Janice kissed her
father good-night and went to her own room.
Janice did all she could the next morning before going to school to start Delia right in the housework. But the giantess was still sullen and had much to say about "it comin' to a pretty pass when children boss their elders."
This was an objection that Janice had contended with before. She only said, pleasantly:
"When you have once learned just how we do things here, I sha'n't have to tell you again, Delia. But wherever you go to work, you know, you will have to learn the ways of the house."
"I was doin' housework, I was, when you was in your cradle," declared the woman.
"But evidently not doing it just as we like to have it done here," insisted Janice cheerfully. "Now, try to please daddy, Delia. Everything will be all right then."
Delia only sniffed. She "sniffed" in a higher key than Janice had ever heard anybody sniff before. Certainly Mrs. Bridget Burns was not turning out to be as mild creature as Janice had first believed her to be. She could be stubborn.
When she got to school that morning Janice found that there was another disturbing incident in the offing. Amy Carringford squeezed her arm as they hurried in to grammar recitation, and smiled at her. But it was with gravity that she whispered in Janice's ear:
"I guess I shall have to refuse Stella's invitation."
"Oh, you must go!"
"No, I can't go."
"Don't dare say that, Amy!" responded Janice, earnestly. "You haven't told her you aren't coming, have you?"
"No-o."
"Don't you dare!" repeated Janice.
"But--but, I don't see how I can--"
"Wait! I'll tell you after school. Don't say a word to Stella about not going to the party. I tell you, if you don't go, I sha'n't!"
"Oh, Janice!"
There was no time for more whispering. Amy's big luminous eyes were fixed on her friend a good deal through the several recitations they both attended. It was evident she was puzzled.
At lunch hour Amy always ran home, for Mullen Lane-- at least, the end on which she lived--was not far. And, perhaps, she did not care to join the girls who brought nice lunches in pretty baskets. So Janice could not talk with her new friend until school was out.
Janice had determined to make a friend of Amy Carringford. Oh, yes, when Janice Day made up her mind to a thing she usually did it. And she had conceived a great liking for Amy, as well as a deep interest in the whole Carringford family.
"Now, Janice, what did you mean?" Amy asked, as they set off from the schoolhouse with their books. "I just can't go to that party!"
"Daddy says that it is a mistake to say that the word can't is not in the dictionary, for it is--in the newer ones. But I am sure it ought not to be found in the 'bright lexicon of youth'--like 'fail,' you know," and Janice laughed.
"You are just talking," giggled Amy, clinging to Janice's arm. "I don't know what you mean."
"You are going to know soon, my dear," returned Janice. "Come home with me. Your mother won't mind, will she?"
"No. I'll send word by Gummy."
"My, that sounds almost like swearing--'by Gummy!' exclaimed Janice, her hazel eyes dancing. "And there Gummy goes. Grab him quick. Tell him you'll stay to supper."
"Oh, no! I'll tell him I'll stay till supper," rejoined Amy, as she ran after her brother.
She caught up with Janice within half a block laughing and skipping. Never had Janice seen Amy so light-hearted. Even the thought that she could not go to the party at Stella Latham's house did not serve to make Amy sorrowful for long. And Janice guessed why.
Amy Carringford had been hungry for a close friend. Perhaps Janice was starved, too, for such companionship. At any rate, Amy responded to Janice's friendliness just as a sunflower responds to the orb of the day and turns toward it.
The two girls went on quite merrily toward the Day cottage at Eight Hundred and Forty-five Knight Street. There was plenty to chatter about without even touching on the coming party. Janice had plans about that.
When the two came in sight of the Day house those plans --and almost everything else--went out of Janice's head. There was a high, dusty, empty rubbish cart standing before the side gate of the Day premises; and from the porch a man in the usual khaki uniform of the Highway Department was bringing out a black oilcloth bag which Janice very well remembered.
"Oh, dear me! what can have happened?" Janice cried starting to run. "That is Delia's bag--the very one she brought with her."
She arrived at the gate just as the man came through the opening. He was a dusty-faced man, with a bristling mustache, and great, overhanging brows. He looked very angry, too.
"Oh, what is the matter?" asked Janice, as the man pitched the oilcloth bag into the cart, and turned back toward the house again.
But he was not regarding at all the girl or her chum who then ran up. He turned to bellow in through the open door:
"Hi! Come out o' that, Biddy Burns! Ye poor innocent! Sure, with your two little children home cryin' all day alone and me at work, ye should be ashamed of yerself, me gur-rl! If I was the kind of a feyther ye nade, I'd be wearin' a hairbrush out on ye, big and old as ye be. Come out o' that--or will I come in afther ye?"
"Mercy me!" gasped Amy.
"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Janice, tugging at the man's
sleeve, "what are you doing to Delia?"
"'Delia,' is it? More of her foolishness. She's Biddy Burns, and her husband is dead--lucky man that he is. And I'm her feyther and the grandfeyther of her two babies--Tessie and 'Melia. And if she don't come home this minute with me, I'll put the young ones in a home, so I will!"
Delia, in the flounced dress, and weeping, just then appeared. She stumbled down the steps and came to the gate, blubbering like a child.
"Sure, he says I've got to go ho-ome," sobbed the giantess. "'Tis me father--he tells the truth. But I wanted to earn money myself. He never lets me do nothing I want to do!"
"Ye big, foolish gur-rl!" ejaculated the man gruffly. "Was it workin' for you she was, Miss?"
"Yes," said Janice breathlessly.
"And they had a pianny," sobbed Delia;. "'Twas be-a-utiful!"
"You come home an' play on the washboard--that's the kind of a pianny you nade to play on," grumbled her father. "I'm sorry for ye," he added turning to Janice, "if your folks has to depend on the likes of her to do the work. Sure, it's not right good sinse she's got."
He came behind the giantess suddenly and boosted her with strong arms up to the seat at the front of the wagon. Then he climbed up himself and the turnout rattled away heavily along the street.
Delia's departure was one of the most astounding things that had happened to the Days during the months of their dependence upon itinerant houseworkers. _